


Everything Goes Wrong in the Chip Aisle

by Erosanderis



Category: Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Awesome Sarah Rogers, Fluff, Grocery Shopping, Kid Fic, M/M, Meet-Cute, POV Bucky Barnes, Parent Steve Rogers, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, War Veteran Bucky Barnes, no beta we die like men, unbetad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:21:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26639476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Erosanderis/pseuds/Erosanderis
Summary: Bucky needs to go grocery shopping. He’s been living on take out for too long. The thing is, people make him anxious. But he goes anyway. Everything goes smoothly, until he gets to the chip aisle.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers
Comments: 9
Kudos: 235





	Everything Goes Wrong in the Chip Aisle

**Author's Note:**

> Hello lovelies, 
> 
> All I wanted to do today was read an adorable kidfic but couldn’t find any new ones because apparently I’ve read them all. So, I wrote my own adorable little one shot instead. I hope you all like it! I managed to bang it out in two hours and did zero proofreading, so let’s hope this doesn’t suck. 
> 
> Also, to anyone who likes to write fic or would maybe want to start, please peep my end of chapter notes! 
> 
> Xoxo  
> -Kit

Grocery shopping. 

Grocery shopping. 

He needed to go grocery shopping. 

Bucky was a 34 year old man, he could go to the fucking grocery store. 

Nope.

Nope, he could not do this. 

There were too many people outside. There were too many noises. There were too many things that could send him into a panic attack. 

But he was also in desperate need of food. 

There was only so much take out a person could live on, and Bucky assumed that he passed that limit long ago. 

He needed a nice home cooked meal. He needed to go out into the world and buy food. 

Okay. 

He could do this. 

He grabbed his phone, headphones, wallet, keys, and reusable bag off the kitchen counter. 

He laced up his combat boots.

He zipped up his well-worn leather jacket.

He opened the front door. 

He was doing it. He was leaving his apartment. He was a functional member of society. 

His therapist would be so proud. 

He plugged his headphones into the jack on his phone and pulled up the first movie score he found in his library. He turned it up as loud as he could tolerate to let the instrumental music drown out the sounds of the world around him. 

He kept his head down as he walked the three blocks it took to get to the nearest Whole Foods. The store was expensive as shit, but it was the closest, and would force him to make healthier choices. 

Lucky for him, it was much quieter in the store than it was on the street. He was able to lover his music, but he didn’t want to turn it off fully. It was easier to avoid people that way. 

It didn’t take long for him to get what he needed. He was the only person he had to worry about feeding, and anything was better than MRE’s. His last stop was the chip aisle. He always saved it for last, knowing that if his cart was empty he would pile it high with junk. 

Naturally, it was in the chip aisle where his plans started to go awry. 

Sitting on the floor, in front of his favorite chips no less, was a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than three years old. She was sitting there with her pudgy little arms wrapped around her knees. Her head was resting on her arms and her shoulders were shaking slightly, as if she was crying. 

Bucky looked around the aisle only to find it empty aside from the two of them. He knew he couldn’t leave the little girl alone, even if it was just to find a store employee to help find the adult she belonged to. 

Despite being a veteran with ptsd up the ass, Bucky was surprisingly okay with children. Since coming back stateside, he spent a lot of time with his sister Becca and her two sons. He actually found it easier to be around them than her. Kids didn’t really expect much. They don’t care if you can barely make yourself go to the grocery store, as long as you will sit there and let them play with your hair they are happy. Or, at least, that’s how it went with Becca’s kids. 

He pulled his headphones out of his ears and pocketed them. He then slowly made his way over to where the little girl was sitting. Instead of talking, he sat down a few feet from her left. He mimicked her position, wrapping his arms around his knees, but he didn’t rest his head on top of them. Then, he did what any rational adult would do in that situation, and began to overdramatically fake cry. He pulled the ugliest, most pathetic sad face he could, and made a sobbing noise. 

After a few seconds of this, he saw the girl shift out of the corner of his eye. He stopped for a second, glancing over at her, then resumed his fake crying. He repeated this process for a minute or so before the little girl started laughing at him. 

He turned to look at her with fake shock. 

“Excuse me little miss, do you find my crying funny?” He asked, obviously pretending to be mad. 

The little girl nodded her head, smiling at him. 

“Well that’s not very nice,” he pretended to chastise her. “All I wanted to do was sit down with another crying person so we could cry together, but now you’re laughing at me.” Of course, he had to begin the fake crying again, getting another laugh from the little girl. 

He gave her a soft smile before talking again. “So little miss, why are you so sad? Does it have something to do with being all alone in this aisle?” 

“I lost my daddy,” she said, her frown returning. 

“Well that’s not very good,” he agreed, frowning along with her. “Do you happen to know his phone number?” 

“No,” she admitted, lip trembling. 

“I have an idea,” he told her, and pulled out his phone. He looked up the phone number for the specific store he was in and pressed the call button. It only took a few rings for someone to pick up. 

“Hello, this is Whole Foods. How can I help you today?” The person on the other end of the line asks. 

“Hi, I’m currently in your store, the chip aisle to be specific. I made friends with a little girl who seems to have lost her daddy. I was wondering if you would be able to send an employee over to help me escort her to the customer service desk or something.” 

“Oh my, I will have someone come over right away. Thank you for calling us, sir.” 

Bucky hung up his phone and turned to the little girl. “Well you’re in luck. Someone who works at this store is going to come and help us find your daddy. Does that sound like a good idea?” 

The little girl nodded her head and shifted closer to him. 

Within two minutes of making the call, a staff member made their way over to where Bucky and the little girl were. 

The young woman crouches down in front of them and talks to the little girl. “Hi there sweetie,” she started, Bucky recognizing her voice as the same one from the phone. “My name is Darcy. I heard that you lost your daddy. How about we go back over to my desk so that we can find him?” 

“Okay,” she mumbled to Darcy. 

“What’s your name, sweetie?” Darcy asked, something Bucky hadn’t even thought to do. 

“Sarah.” 

“Well it’s very nice to meet you Sarah. Now I think we should get off this floor and go find your daddy, yeah?” 

Darcy was the first to get up, extending a hand to the little girl - Sarah. 

Instead of getting up, Sarah looked over to Bucky. 

“Will you come too?” She asked in such a sweet tone that Bucky didn’t have the heart to say no. 

“Sure thing, little miss,” he said to her as he pushed himself off the ground. “Why don’t you hold Darcy’s hand so that I can push my cart.” 

Sarah agreed, though seemed a little reluctant to do so. It made sense, at least to Bucky. She and Bucky already had a comradery. They had cried together on the floor. Well, she had cried, he just faked it to make her laugh, but still. 

The three of them made their way to the customer service desk near the back of the store. Even though Sarah was holding Darcy’s hand, she tried to stay as close to Bucky as she could. It made him feel a lot better about himself knowing that she felt comfortable around him. 

“Hey Sarah, what’s your daddy’s name?” Darcy asked her when they got to the desk. 

“Steve Rogers,” she answered softly. 

“Okay, I’m going to page him over the loudspeaker. Why don’t the two of you sit in those chairs over there,” she said, pointing to a few chairs near where they stood. With that, Darcy went behind the desk to make the announcement. 

Bucky and Sarah walked over to the chairs and sat next to each other. 

“What’s your name?” Sarah asked him. 

“Bucky.” The second he told her, she let out a giggle. 

“Bucky,” she repeated. “Like lucky or ducky. Lucky Bucky the ducky.” 

Bucky couldn’t help but laugh at that. It was painfully adorable. 

“Are you married Bucky?” She asked out of nowhere. 

“No, I’m not.” 

“Neither is my daddy. But Aunt Natasha says daddy should get married. Maybe you can marry my daddy!” 

Bucky had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. Luckily he was saved from having to formulate a response by someone yelling Sarah’s name. 

The little girl immediately perked up and bolted from her seat. “Daddy!” She shouted as she ran into the man’s arms. 

“Oh baby, you scared me. I’m so glad you’re okay,” the man said as he pulled his daughter into a tight hug. 

“I’m sorry daddy.” 

“It’s okay honey. I’m just happy that you’re okay.” 

When the man stood up, Sarah still cradled in his arms, Bucky nearly choked on his tongue. Sarah’s father, Steve according to her, was the exact same Steve he had a crush on in high school. The only difference was, long gone was the small, skinny artist who couldn’t see past his own nose without glasses. In his place was an Adonis. Steve still had the same blue eyes, floppy blonde hair, and crooked nose from getting into too many fights, but from the neck down he was a different person. He looked to have grown a foot and put on a hundred pounds of pure muscle since Bucky had last seen him. As much as Bucky had loved the twink vibes of high school Steve, he wasn’t mad about the change in physique. 

Steve seemed to have recognized him as well. The moment his eyes landed on Bucky they widened. He looked Bucky up and down, likely assessing how much he had changed. 

“Bucky?” Steve managed for choke. 

“Long time no see,” Bucky tried to joke. 

Before either of them could make a bigger fool of themselves, Sarah chose to join the conversation. 

“Daddy you know Bucky Ducky? I like Bucky Ducky. He’s funny. He made me laugh when I cried because I couldn’t find you. And he helped me find you.” 

Steve gave him an odd look when she called him ‘Bucky Ducky’. Then he answered his daughter. “Yeah, Bucky and I went to school together.” 

“So he was your friend?” She asked. 

Bucky wouldn’t say that he ans steve we’re friends. Sure, they were friendly with each other. They had been paired upa few times on assignments and were able to work well together. It was working together on a project that lead to Bucky’s crush actually. But he wouldn’t necessarily call them friends. 

“Yup,” Steve said, looking over to Bucky as he said it. “We were.” 

“Yay! That’s great. I asked Bucky if he was married and he said no. And you’re not married. And Aunt Natasha said that you need to get married. And if you and Bucky are friends then you can marry him!” 

Steve paled with every new sentence that Sarah said. 

“Well,” he said, trying to stop her from continuing, but there was no stopping little Sarah on her quest to get them married. 

“And it’s okay for you to marry him because boys can like boys and girls can like girls. And you like boys and girls! Bucky, do you like boys?” She shifted the conversation his way. 

To say Bucky was shocked would be an understatement. His high school crush was bisexual and his daughter was trying to get them to marry each other. 

“You don’t have to,” Steve started, clearly embarrassed. 

“I do,” he told her, doing his best not to look at Steve. In his periphery, he could see something like hope flash in Steve’s eyes. He could hear a voice in the back of his head, which sounded a lot like Becca, telling him to shoot his shot. So he did. “Hey Sarah, can I tell you a secret? The only other person who knows it is my big sister.” 

Sarah nodded enthusiastically. 

“Well, when I was in school there was this really cute little blonde guy named Steve. One day, our teacher told us we had to work together on a project. That day, after working with him all class, I realized that I liked boys. Well, at least I liked him,” Bucky told her with a smile. 

When he glanced over at Steve, the blonde had shock written all over his face. 

“Really?” Is all Steve managed to say. 

“Really. Never had the guts to ask him out though.” 

“You should have. He would have said yes.” 

“He would have? Would he still say yes? Even if he knew that the guy asking was an army vet with ptsd who spent ten minutes giving himself a pep talk to go grocery shopping?” Bucky asked, slightly scared of the answer. 

“He’d say yes to the guy who found his daughter crying in the store and decided to help her, even though he didn’t want to be in the store in the first place,” Steve said, smiling at Bucky. Bucky smiles back. 

In that moment, Bucky was glad he managed to drag himself to the grocery store.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, 
> 
> I really want to get a fanfic exchange going! My idea is a Christmas fic exchange. So my rules for it as a 3K word minimum. Sign up will be available until November 12. The fics will be posted on December 20. If you know anyone who writes stucky fic, please feel free to send them the link to the sign up. Also, this is my first time doing anything like this, so I’m hoping I can get something going.... 
> 
> I hope there are a bunch of you who want to do this!
> 
> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1-2Jj71GxiGkuIE56vtYjYaVwJVf4rGlUTgxZqgbJGVU
> 
> Follow me on Twitter @erosanderis for updates! 
> 
> -Kit


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